By KEVIN CHIRI

Editor and Publisher

LAPLACE – St. John Parish officials have inked a deal that will get every water drain line in the entire parish pressure cleaned and vacuumed out.

St. John Parish President Bill Hubbard said he was able to get FEMA to approve a deal that will not cost the parish a penny, but provide what could be as much as $5 million for cleaning out every drainage line in the parish.

“This is just huge to get this approved,” Hubbard told L’Observateur. “When I was in Jefferson Parish, we got FEMA to pay for this after Katrina hit, so I figured I would try it here.”

Hubbard said he contacted FEMA right after Hurricane Gustav passed and took a shot at seeking federal funds to get the drain line cleaning approved.

The service will pressure clean, and vacuum out any debris or dirt that is clogging up any drainage lines in the parish.

EMR from Lawrence, Kansas was the low bidder out of three companies that sought the deal. Also bidding was Fleming Construction from Kenner, and Bayou Home Improvement from Bridge City.

The total cost of the contract is uncertain since the bid was per linear foot, and that also changes depending on the diameter of the pipe being cleaned. But overall, Hubbard said it might be a final bill “between $3 million and $5 million,” all of which will be getting paid for by the feds.

“This will be a great thing for the entire parish drainage system,” Hubbard explained. “I got an idea of how much this can help drainage since we did something similar in Riverland Heights a month before Gustav came through. That is a notoriously bad draining area of our town, so we cleaned out their drains last month. When these two hurricanes came through, there was a noticeable difference in how well the water drained from there.”

Hubbard said that he is sure many drain lines in the parish have perhaps never even been cleaned out, and it’s clear that multitudes are clogged up and unable to get water drained out effectively.

“I’m more excited about this than a lot of other things we are trying to do since I know this is going to ease the pressure on a lot of people who have drainage problems,” he said.

Hubbard said he is also looking into another project that would put “flapper valves” over large drainage pipes on the north side of Interstate 10, where much of the water comes from when winds blow from the north.

“I would estimate that 75 to 85 percent of the water problems we have come through that area of Interstate 10, so we are looking into putting flapper valves on the other sides of the pipes so the water couldn’t back up in situations like what we just had,” he noted.